A broken sequence, light and dark, then light and light and dark again, sleep interrupted by nightmares; over and over, dreams of the man who took his voice away from me. Him in a grocery store. Him in a parking lot. Him at a park full of grass, full of children on swings and sunshine and wind through trees. Him, tongue unbound, his beautiful voice speaking, just so suddenly speaking.

It is a bad night and when I wake in the morning, my body aching, my muscles tight and angry, it’s as if I’ve not slept at all. But the day is lovely, the fall weather crisp, full of multicolored leaves stacking alongside the roadway I drive down, the reds and yellows and oranges all bleeding into one another, beginning to overtake the green. At home the small boy hugs me often, kisses my cheek because he loves me. We play games and I watch him running up and down the driveway, dark hair flopping in the wind, head down, arms pumping side by side by side by side, running as fast as he can. Nothing but pure joy from him, both of us laughing.

And though I am not unhappy, mine is a laugh not untinged with shadow. Mine is a mind, unquiet, that can’t quite shake those dreams–all of them just of him, finally at last speaking, his voice clear and bright and happy. His voice, something like light, like joy, and the heart of dream me aches from it. A night full of broken sequences, light and dark and dark and more dark, his voice filling the air all around me, and dream me no longer wants to hear it. Dream me, voiceless, no longer says anything back.